POLICY BRIEF // European Special Economic Zones Research spin-off project of “The World in Europe: Global FDI flows towards Europe (ESPON FDI)” Policy Brief // November 2020 (Akkermans, 2017) (Ambroziak & Hartwell, 2018) This Policy brief is conducted within the framework of the ESPON 2020 Cooperation Programme, partly financed by the European Regional Development Fund. The ESPON EGTC is the Single Beneficiary of the ESPON 2020 Cooperation Programme. The Single Operation within the programme is implemented by the ESPON EGTC and co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund, the EU Member States and the Partner States, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. This delivery does not necessarily reflect the opinions of members of the ESPON 2020 Monitoring Committee. Authors Copenhagen Economics: Sigurd Næss-Schmidt, Erik Dahlberg, Morten May Hansen, Hendrik Ehmann Acknowledgements We thank the Hungarian Government, ESPON EGTC and the people in the SEZs and ministries that answered our questions and gave good inputs for us to make this policy brief. Information on ESPON and its projects can be found at www.espon.eu. The website provides the possibility to download and examine the most recent documents produced by finalised and ongoing ESPON projects. ISBN: 978-2-919795-62-8 © ESPON, 2020 Published in October 2020 Graphic design by BGRAPHIC, Denmark Printing, reproduction or quotation is authorised provided the source is acknowledged and a copy is forwarded to the ESPON EGTC in Luxembourg. Contact: [email protected] POLICY BRIEF // European Special Economic Zones Research spin-off project of “The World in Europe: Global FDI flows towards Europe (ESPON FDI)” Policy Brief // November 2020 Disclaimer This document is a policy brief The information contained herein is subject to change and does not commit the ESPON EGTC and the countries participating in the ESPON 2020 Cooperation Programme. POLICY BRIEF // European Special Economic Zones Table of contents Abbreviations ...................................................................................................................................... 8 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 9 1 The Latvian Special Economic Zones ............................................................................ 11 1.1 The economic impact of the Latvian SEZs ................................................................................ 14 1.2 Relevance for Hungary ............................................................................................................. 17 2 The Lithuanian Free Economic Zones ........................................................................... 18 2.1 The economic impact of the Lithuanian FEZs ........................................................................... 21 2.2 Relevance for Hungary ............................................................................................................. 24 3 The Polish Special Economic Zones.............................................................................. 25 3.1 The economic impact of the Polish SEZs ................................................................................. 28 3.2 Relevance for Hungary ............................................................................................................. 32 4 Other country specific impact assessments of SEZs .................................................. 33 4.1 Country specific economic impact of SEZs ............................................................................... 33 4.1.1 The Canary Islands SEZ ........................................................................................................... 33 4.1.2 Southern Italy’s SEZs ............................................................................................................... 35 4.2 Relevance for Hungary ............................................................................................................. 36 5 Suggestions for the Hungarian FEZ scheme revision.................................................. 37 References ......................................................................................................................................... 39 ESPON // espon.eu 5 POLICY BRIEF // European Special Economic Zones List of maps, figures, charts and tables List of maps Map 1.1 Map of Latvian SEZs ........................................................................................................... 11 Map 2.1 Map of Lithuanian FEZs ...................................................................................................... 18 Map 3.1 Click or tap here to enter text. ............................................................................................. 25 List of tables Table 0.1 SEZs comparative elements ................................................................................................ 10 Table 1.1 Overview of Latvian SEZs ................................................................................................... 14 Table 1.2 Summary of results in the Latvian SEZs .............................................................................. 15 Table 2.1 Overview of Lithuanian FEZs .............................................................................................. 20 Table 2.2 Summary of results in the Lithuanian FEZs ......................................................................... 21 Table 3.1 Overview of Polish SEZs ..................................................................................................... 28 Table 3.2 Summary of results in the Polish SEZs ............................................................................... 29 6 ESPON // espon.eu POLICY BRIEF // European Special Economic Zones List of boxes List of suggestions Change of territorial coverage and organisation ......................................................................................... 37 Blended governance ................................................................................................................................... 38 Differentiated incentives in different regions ............................................................................................... 38 Conducting ex-ante economic assessments ............................................................................................... 38 ESPON // espon.eu 7 POLICY BRIEF // European Special Economic Zones Abbreviations ARCA Additive index of revealed comparative advantage EFTA European Free Trade Association EGTC European Grouping on Territorial Cooperation ESPON European Territorial Observatory Network EU European Union Ha Hectares FDI Foreign direct investment FEZ Free economic zone FTZ Free trade zone GDP Gross domestic product GVFA Gross value of fixed asset IIFZ Integrated industrial free zone NRCA Normalised index of revealed competitive advantage NUTS Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics PAIH Polish Investment & Trade Agency PZM Private zone management R&D Research and development RCA Revealed comparative advantage SDM Spatial Durbin model SEZ Special economic zone TDI Territory development index VAT Value added tax ZEC Canary Islands Special Zone 8 ESPON // espon.eu POLICY BRIEF // European Special Economic Zones Introduction During 2020, the Hungarian government has been revising their free economic zones (FEZs). A FEZ is a subcategory of the broader term Special Economic Zone (SEZ), i.e. designated areas within a country where companies have preferential terms within the framework of national and EU state aid rules. These preferen- tial terms include for example tax exemptions of e.g. corporate or personal income taxes. 1 The government is looking into different aspects of their FEZs, including the incentives given to firms investing in the FEZ, the territorial coverage of the FEZs, the role of the government, the objectives (raison d’être) of the FEZs, etc. As part of this revision, the Hungarian government and ESPON EGTC has asked Copenhagen Economics to analyse four case study SEZs in Europe for comparison and inspiration to the revision of the Hungarian FEZs. Based on a list of European SEZs with publicly available information on the incentives, objectives, territorial coverage, etc., four case studies have been selected for further analysis. The case studies were agreed among the Hungarian government, ESPON EGTC and Copenhagen Economics, and are analysed in this policy brief. We go through the four case studies one by one in four chapters: 1. The Latvian Special Economic Zones 2. The Lithuanian Free Economic Zones 3. The Polish Special Economic Zones 4. Other cases of SEZ impact assessments in other countries The first three case studies are country-specific, whereas the last covers impact studies in other European countries. In this policy brief, we describe the selected SEZs and we analyse available literature dedicated to ex-ante or ex-post impact analyses and methodologies applied in the four SEZ case studies. Most studies analysed do not consider counterfactual analyses. However, two studies of the included studies make a counterfactual analysis when examining the Polish SEZs using difference-in-difference methodologies. 2 Where relevant and possible, the case studies are supported by information from the parent study Global FDI flows towards Europe3 and data from Eurostat and national statistics. Furthermore, we gathered